Kuykendall, Charles (Charlie)

ORAL HISTORY OF CHARLES (CHARLIE) KUYKENDALL
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
March 5, 2012
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is March the 5th, 2012, and I am at the home of Charlie Kuykendall, or Charles, I suppose it is.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, everybody at work said Charlie.
MR. MCDANIEL: Charlie [Laughter].
MR. KUYKENDALL: And my family always said Charles, but that's because my mom.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course, but everybody knows you knows you as Charlie Kuykendall. And we're at Charlie's home here in Knoxville. And Charlie, thank you for taking time to talk to us.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I'm kind of surprised that y'all want to talk with me, but I'm pleased to be of any help.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right, well usually let's start at the -- I start at the very beginning, and we're going to talk about your life and your work, but let's start at where you were born and where you were raised and something about your family.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I was born the 16th of 17 children, in a little -- on a farm near Wickes, Arkansas. We lived three miles out of town, and as a matter of fact, my dad never owned a car. He [Laughter] -- kind of funny. When one of my brothers got old enough to earn money and offered to buy my Dad a car, my Dad said, "Why would I want a car? It's just three miles to town. I can hitch the team up, put the corn in that we're going to have ground, put the kids in the back, and we can all have fun riding out there, and back." And he said, "If I had a car, it would just ruin everything."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: So he would never own a car and didn't own a car the entire time we were growing up. Just no need for one.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, and you were born in what year?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I was born in 1929, right at the end of the Depression.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. And so you were the 16th of 17 children.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Right, right. One mom and one dad, and my mom, later on, she told me one day, she said - and these young girls today - she said, "They go up to the hospital to have those babies." She said, "I had all of my babies at home, in the morning, and I'd be doing the washing in the afternoon."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? [Laughter] Sounds like she was pretty tough.
MR. KUYKENDALL: She came from South Carolina with her mom and dad in a covered wagon. She was the oldest child in that family, and indeed she was a real pioneer.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm going to adjust something real quick, just for a second. There we go. She was a real pioneer.
MR. KUYKENDALL: She was a real pioneer.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right. So this was the - this was in the, I guess, ‘30s and ‘40s in where you grew up in Wickes, Arkansas.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Right, that's when I grew up. I always felt like we were rich, even though we really didn't have anything except we had plenty of fruit, plenty of vegetables, plenty of eggs, plenty of chickens, and all those good things that, today, they say you should eat to stay healthy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course, of course. The – so, y'all grew up on a working farm. Your dad was a farmer.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Right. It was just a small working farm. Most of it was just to make our own living, but we grew some things to bring in a little money.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So how big was the house you lived in with 17 kids? And were all 17 at home at one time?
MR. KUYKENDALL: No. You can imagine, over a period of time, some were gone. As a matter of fact, my oldest sister had four children before I was born. So here we are. No, they were not all at home at the same time, but the house was small, but it seemed like plenty of room to us at the time. You remember little Jimmy Dickens sleeping at the foot of the bed song?
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, sure.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, many a time, I slept at the foot of the bed, because company did come round, and it was never a question about, "Oh, do we have room?" Oh, we just made an extra bed in the floor, or if we were - in my case, I was next to the baby in the family. There'd be six or seven of us sleeping in one bed. We would sleep like this, heads and toes, and - yeah. Anyway.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, my goodness. [Laughter] So, y'all survived, y'all survived, and now, where did you go to school?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, there's a little school about three miles from where I grew up, and as a matter of fact, I just happened to have a picture. It was a very small school. I just happened to have a picture of some of us in the first grade.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Just sit back and hold it. I'm going to zoom in on that.
MR. KUYKENDALL: It's a - this is typical of what we all looked like [Laughter].
MR. MCDANIEL: _ _ _, hold on a second, let me -
MR. KUYKENDALL: You notice everybody's got overalls on. All the boys do. And, of course, we knew - all of us knew each other.
MR. MCDANIEL: Which one is you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I am that one right there where my finger is pointing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let me zoom in there. Oh, my goodness. [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: That's me.
MR. MCDANIEL: That is you. All right. All right, there we go, that's good, thank you, that's good. So, it was about three miles?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yep, it was about three miles to school, and the school bus came by to pick us up, so we didn't have to walk to school. We had to walk a mile from our house down to catch the school bus, a good part of that, because the way the roads were. We lived on dirt road. That road is still dirt road back there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. KUYKENDALL: In fact, one of my nephews, who still lives in the old place, told me recently, he said, "Uncle Charles, they're thinking about paving these roads." He said, "I may have to move." He said, "There'll be cars, lotta cars coming through here if they do all that." [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness. So, just a second. So, the little house. You said it had -
MR. KUYKENDALL: Six rooms.
MR. MCDANIEL: Six rooms, and how many kids? Can you remember how many kids were there at home at one time? Maybe nine or ten or something?
MR. KUYKENDALL: There were nine of us at home at one time, and of course we're talking about the days when the three C's - the Civilian Conservation Corps - was up. Two of my brothers went to that to make some money and we're also talking about a time that wasn't too long that World War II came along. Three of my brothers were in World War II, so they - family came and went, so to speak.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. Now, so you went - you grew up there, you went to high school there, I suppose.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: And then what happened when you graduated high school?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I started talking about it in the 10th grade, about going to college, and my dad - I always told my kids I had one advantage they didn't have, and that was that my parents let me know early if I was going to make it I would have to make it on my own. And my dad told me. He said, "You know, if you're interested in going to college, I'll tell you what. I'll give you that heifer calf and you take good care of her. She'll have a calf before you finish high school." Maybe I was in the 9th grade at that time. And anyway, that turned out to be a cow and a calf by the time I got ready to go to college. And I sold it. He also told me, "There's a quarter of an acre of land down there, if you want to raise some beans on it. They're shipping beans out of Wickes up to Kansas City on the Kansas City Southern Railway. So if you want that quarter of an acre, plant you some beans down there and harvest them and get them into town." And so we did that. And so when I went away to college, I had just a little nest egg and I found a job the first week I was in school, working in the school cafeteria. So I worked my way through school. But I think I owed $500.00 when I graduated after four years of college.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Now, where did you go to school? Where'd you go to college?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Henderson State University. It was a small liberal arts college.
MR. MCDANIEL: And where was that?
MR. KUYKENDALL: At Arkadelphia, Arkansas.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Now, how far away was that from your home?
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was about 200 miles. I could hitchhike there and hitchhike back, which is what I did most of the time, rather than waste any money buying a bus ticket and going all the way to Texarkana, and then back up toward Fort Smith. I could cut through by hitchhiking, so that's generally what I did. ‘Course, we lived at school. We lived on the campus in a dormitory, but I found ways to make money in college. I tell you. I took up dry cleaning in my dormitory. The dry cleaner was - he was delighted to find somebody that would collect payment for the dry cleaning and the area rather than him having to fool with it. And he'd give me a percentage. And so there were several ways to make money, and so working in the school cafeteria was one. Good amount of kids would just fool around during lunch time or breakfast time or supper time. Anyways, I was working in the dishwasher room, helping with running that big dishwasher.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, what did you study? What were you interested in?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I was interested in chemistry. Chemistry, physics, and math. And so I graduated with a major in chemistry and minors in physics and math.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, were you interested in that in high school? When you were in high school?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Somewhat, however the little high school we went to, it was not strong in subjects like chemistry and physics. I had developed that interest on my own. I had also developed it thinking that it would be a good preliminary to a better job than I would normally find if I were just to take an ordinary job.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly, exactly. So, you graduate. What year did you graduate college?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I graduated in 1951. Another way of making money in college was ROTC. So, when I graduated, the Korean War was underway, and I got my commission as a second lieutenant and went into the Army as second lieutenant during the Korean conflict.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. And you were there, what, two years?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Two years. The Army has a way of having a great impact on people's lives, and they certainly did on mine. During my time in the Army, even though I went in the infantry, because of my background in chemistry and physics, I was moved, transferred, to the Chemical Corps for a reason, which I didn't know exactly, at the time, what the reason was, but the reason was that the Chemical Corps was needing some people to help with some of the work out in the Nevada Test Site. I knew very little except what I'd read in college about the atomic energy business, but I knew it was a growing business. But anyway. I was sent to the Nevada Test Site in 1952 --
MR. MCDANIEL: While you're in the service?
MR. KUYKENDALL: --while I was in the service, to start work on 12 atomic tests, as the radiological safety officer. By then I'd had my training at Fort McClellan and my job was to make sure that during the test and after the test that we measured what the radiation was and that we let people in to do their work on at safe levels. And of course, I did some briefings during that time, because a lot of people came to see tests. And lo and behold, here were some people from Oak Ridge who came out to see those tests. I had not really heard much about Oak Ridge up until that point. And I remember there was a guy named Frank Hurd that came out, and Paul Huber. And Sam Sapirie, as a matter of fact. So, during one of my briefings, I met those three people, and it was Frank Hurd who said, "Are you going to stay in the Army the rest of your life?" And I said, "No." He said, "If you are interested in coming to Oak Ridge, we would like to talk with you." So, when I finished that tour out there and got back to Fort McClellan, I made arrangements to come up for an interview. And I came up and interviewed with Bill Wilcox, who was Frank Hurd's assistant. And Bill Wilcox - you know how meticulous Bill is. To Bill, everything is done very carefully. Bill and I were sitting there, going through a very careful interview, and in walks Frank Hurd at K-25, and Frank said, "Well, have you hired him yet? Has he said yes? Have you shown him the housing?" And Bill Wilcox said -
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course, of course. [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: So he said, "Maybe we better go look at some of the housing." And they made me an offer as a junior chemist, and my wife and I didn't have to think about it very long, because we accepted. Been here ever since.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So, you were married at the time?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I was married at the time to Joanne. Sandra and I got married in 1974, my present wife. But yes, I was married at the time, we didn't have any children at the time, but we were married and we both liked this area. And so we said yes, so we came, and we've been here ever since.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So, you came to work in '53, as a junior chemist at K-25. Now, did you work for Wilcox?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yep. Went to work directly for Wilcox, which was like another education, because Bill was so precise on everything that working with him was really great. And I enjoyed that. There was a young man named McCauley who was on active duty. He had been called to active duty while working for Wilcox. When he returned, I went to the Chemistry Department. We were in the Development Division. So, I went to the Chemistry Department and worked on uranium chemistry.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, what did you do when you first got there? What was a typical thing that you would do, working there as a junior chemist, at K-25?
MR. KUYKENDALL: As a junior chemist? Well, at that time, in the period of '54 and '55 there was a lot of work going on having to do with improving the efficiency of the cascades. I'm sure you know, and people who understand gaseous diffusion know, that we were using a lot of energy to compress that gas and put it through. And we were, at the time, looking to see if we couldn't do it more efficiently, particularly heating the uranium a little higher and so it would compress and go through better, and cooling it a little faster, and some places - I suppose most of this has been declassified since I worked there. But I worked on a coolant helping to develop and test a coolant that would be used to improve the efficiency of our gaseous fusion process.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, it was a chemical based coolant I guess?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yes, it was a coolant called 223-trichloro-heptofloro-butane. [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: What a name!
MR. KUYKENDALL: And the question -
MR. MCDANIEL: It had to have a short name, now what did they call it?
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was called 423 or something like that. But the question was - the real question was, suppose there's a leak between this coolant and uranium. Can you separate them?
MR. MCDANIEL: Can you separate them, right.
MR. KUYKENDALL: How can you? Can you separate them with efficiency? It was to prove that it could be done. Did that work and did that report. Got it out, and John Barber – Dr. John Barber - was my immediate boss at the time, and he was real happy with the results. And we ended up using that particular coolant.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah. And not only at K-25, but at Portsmouth, too.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you left after that project. You went to the Chemistry Division. And is that where you worked on this project?
MR. KUYKENDALL: The Chemistry Department of the Gaseous Diffusion Development Division is where I worked on this project.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, how long were you at the Chemistry Division?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I was there until let's see - until 1960. Some of that time, I was asked to go do other jobs, because my background was so varied. I worked in the pilot plant, where we were testing the barrier.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, the barrier.
MR. KUYKENDALL: To see if its efficiency was what we thought it'd be. So I worked in that for a while, too. So I had a variety of jobs. And then, I worked in a planning group for about a year, but in 1960, I moved - By 1960, the uranium enrichment through gaseous fusion appeared to have reached its height. And we had Portsmouth, we had Paducah, we had Oak Ridge, and everybody said probably no more gaseous fusion plants will be built.
MR. MCDANIEL: Because they figured, "Hey, you had enough to do whatever you needed to do, and you probably don't need anymore."
MR. KUYKENDALL: I was still busy at K-25, but along came a guy, F.S. Patton, from Y-12, and he ran a group over there called Process Analysis. And one day, he just casually asked me if I would be interested in coming over and working at Process Analysis in Y-12. And I thought about it a little bit, and thought about where we were at K-25, and I'd been there 7 years and I'd had a lot of fun. I had enjoyed every job I ever had over there. And so I said to him, "You know, I might be willing to give it a try." And so in 1960, I moved to Y-12 and the Process Analysis Department and worked in that organization.
MR. MCDANIEL: And what did they do? What did Process Analysis do?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, at Y-12, they were working on trying to make sure that the Y-12 processes were all in good shape. It was almost like a consulting group. They were trying to make sure that all was running well in the Y-12 plant. If there was a technical problem, they would help work on the engineering part of the technical problem, if it was something they could help with. George Jasny ended up running it for years and years. And during that time, I got to know, of course, John Murray who was plant manager when I first went over there. John Murray was an interesting person to work around. Can I share one story about John Murray? [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, absolutely, tell me. That's what we're here for.
MR. KUYKENDALL: I always enjoyed the little bit of looking at history and jotting things down, and this is a true story that I jotted down about John Murray. I'd heard it, and it was so funny, I couldn't believe it. John Murray was a workaholic.
MR. MCDANIEL: And he was the plant manager at Y-12?
MR. KUYKENDALL: He was the plant manager. Roger Hibbs worked for him. And George Jasny worked for Roger and I worked for George Jasny. I really started working for Patton - Finis Patton - but Patton went to an engineering group, and Jasny came in. Well, anyway, Murray was down at 9766 one day. There was a medical group down there. Anyway, he noticed a guy sitting in the shade of that building when he went in. And when he came out, 45 minutes later, that guy was still sitting there. And you know - I don't know whether you ever knew John or not, but John Murray just couldn't pass stuff like that by. So he stopped and he said, "Kinda got it made there, haven't you, Buddy?" And that guy said, "All of us Carbiders have got it made." John looked at him, and he said, "You don't know who I am, do you?" And the guy said, "No, I sure don't." And John Murray said, "I'm John Murray. I'm the plant manager." And that guy said, "Man, you have got it made." [Laughter] And when I heard that story, I thought, "Somebody's just made that up." But I went in and asked John. I said, "Did that happen that way?" He said, "It happened exactly that way." I said, "So what did you do?" He said, "What could I do? I had to hurry away from there. I was just about to burst out laughing."
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] Oh, that's funny.
MR. KUYKENDALL: But you know, the attitude at Y-12 was - we are a can-do. We can do anything. And John had a reputation of going out to design labs and getting work that could just barely be done, just -
MR. MCDANIEL: That nobody else could do.
MR. KUYKENDALL: That nobody else could do. It was -
MR. MCDANIEL: And he'd say, "We can do it, and when do you need it?" [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah, yeah. Just barely be done. In fact, Jack Case told me a story one day. He said it reminded him of the moonshiner - Had given this guy some whiskey, the boss, and the boss poured a little of it into a bottle and gave it to one of his workers and said, "Take that home and try it." And the worker came back the next day and said, "Boss, it was just right." And he said, "What do you mean it was just right?" He said, "If it'd been any worse, I couldn't have stood it. If it'd been any better, you wouldn't have given it to me." But that is the kind of jobs that we got. If it'd been any worse, we couldn't have stood it. So anyway, after working in that group for a while, I ended up working directly for Jack Case. And from there, he thought that it would be good if I worked some in the actual fabrication operations. So, I went to work as a general foreman in the machine shops.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah. On a shift.
MR. MCDANIEL: He wanted you to have that experience.
MR. KUYKENDALL: He wanted me to have that experience. And that was a great experience, because I wasn't the machinist, and nearly everybody from foreman, general foreman down, had come through the ranks. They were all machinists. So I learned an immense amount just walking around talking.
MR. MCDANIEL: And Jack Case was the one who told you to do that.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Jack Case was one who said -
MR. MCDANIEL: Because he came from there, didn't he?
MR. KUYKENDALL: He moved up from being a machinist himself.
MR. MCDANIEL: To the plant manager, I guess.
MR. KUYKENDALL: To being the plant manager.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And yeah, you'll never find a finer person than Jack Case.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Really?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Oh, that's right. I think all of us that ever worked for him or around him have maintained that feeling, that you never run into anybody better than Jack Case.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, here you were, and what year was this, when you went to work as a general foreman?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I was - in those years, let's see. It had to be in about sixty - It had to be about '65, '66, that I was working in the machine shops. This was another thing that was interesting. We were just getting started with trying to do some work with tape control machine tools. Can you imagine an old fashioned name like tape control machine?
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Machinist’s didn't like it. The foreman, general foreman, didn't like it, because they'd come up doing it all exactly on their own.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And I kind of got - I kind of edged my way in and helped get them to see the value of using those to help them do a better job. And they, in turn, would make suggestions to me about how we could shorten some of the jobs we were on by doing some simple things. But anyway, I loved that job, and -
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you? Shift work?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Shift work, too. It didn't matter. Whatever we were doing, I liked it all. And during that time, we had the opportunity to get interested in the Moonbox program.
MR. MCDANIEL: I was about to ask you, "Was that about the time of the Moonbox Program wasn't it?"
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah, and by then, I had moved down to what's called the General Machine Shop, and had the planners and estimators all working for me. And so they sent me down to Houston, along with a team, to look at what was needed, what could we do, and how could we do it, to do those moonboxes. So I had a little hand in that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, tell me about that. Tell me about the process a little bit there.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, it was a fairly simple process. We made those moonboxes out of aluminum.
MR. MCDANIEL: They were solid pieces of aluminum, weren't they?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah. And we had to machine them out, but it was all done in what we call the big shop, the General Machine Shop. It was just a process of using our big machine tools to do a job that apparently NASA had trouble finding anybody else who said they were willing to do it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. Took it on.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And we took it on, since we been accustomed to taking on those impossible tasks, and doing it. We had a lot of technical help. There's a lot of people in development and engineering and others who made sure that all went well.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet people wanted to be a part of that project, didn't they?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Oh, yeah, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Because it was - that was cool.
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was cool.
MR. MCDANIEL: It was cool. It was a cool project.
MR. KUYKENDALL: You're right. It was cool. But anyway, those were good years – 1960’s. One thing I forgot to mention to you is during those years, I guess it was in 1958. Yeah, about 1958. I got my master's degree at UT [University of Tennessee]. UT had a program where they would come to Oak Ridge and teach classes. If you would go to the - all you had to do was go up and take the course. Courses were being taught primarily at - What was the place called up near DOE? It was in one of the buildings near the DOE headquarters.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right, exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Near the Castle.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Anyway, we took those courses regularly there. And I had to make up my mind. Are you going to get a doctorate? Or are you going to specialize in something you can use more quickly? So I ended up getting a degree in management. And so I got my master's degree in management, in 1958.
MR. MCDANIEL: And it was paid for? Was it paid for by the Lab? I mean by Carbide?
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was. It was partly paid for by them and partly by the Army.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Yeah. I suppose so.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Because I still had -
MR. MCDANIEL: GI Bill type things.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah, GI Bill paid. But anyway, during that time that I was working on that, I did some college recruiting, where I would go to help find students that were interested in coming to Oak Ridge through the college recruiting process that we had here. And, it ended up that my master's thesis was on the subject of how do students make their decisions on where they want to go to work?
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: What are the factors? And so I had done that work and completed it, and in doing all of that, I had spent quite a bit of time, off and on, you know like maybe a month out of the year, at Central Employment, uptown. Well, here comes the opportunity. We got a guy up there named Dr. James Gabbard. And he was going to retire, and then the question arose, "Well, who's going to take Dr. Gabbard's place?" And there were four or five of us that were somewhat interested. So around 19 and 70, I was at Y-12, so it had to be '69. In '69, I talked with him about that possibility and I talked with Roger Hibbs about it and Roger said, "Well, if they're going to offer you the top job, if I were you, I'd take it. But if they offer you the secondary job, don’t go" because there was some possibility of shifting things around up there and I wouldn't get the very top job. So, Tom Lane decided, after I told him that I would come and take the job if it was a top job, Tom Lane offered me the top job of being head of Central Employment.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: And that happened around 1970.
MR. MCDANIEL: Seventy. And where was Central Employment?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Central Employment was located at Charlotte Hall, downtown.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was for Carbide? I mean that was for -
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was all Carbide recruiting for all of Oak Ridge and Paducah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, and Paducah, okay.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And Paducah. Oak Ridge and Paducah. So I went up there and started work as a manager of Central Employment.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you were young. You were just 41.
MR. KUYKENDALL: I was still young.
MR. MCDANIEL: You're still young. [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: In 1973, the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, sent word to Oak Ridge that they were looking for someone who was an expert in manpower planning, who had a technical background. They wanted someone to help the Brazilian government with manpower planning in Brazil, because Brazil, at the time, was thinking about developing nuclear energy to power reactors. So someone from the Lab called me and asked me if I'd put my name in. I said, "Well, I will, but it's probably a waste of time." Because I said, "This is an international search, isn't it?" "Yes, it is. They're looking at England and everywhere." So I put my name in, thinking I might never hear from them. Oh, my gosh. In about a month, I got a registered letter back from the International Atomic Energy Agency saying that I had been selected.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that [Laughter] - Now, did you ever find out who put your name in? Was it somebody who wanted you gone from Oak Ridge? Is that what it was?
MR. KUYKENDALL: No, it was a deputy director at the Lab that I hardly knew. I'm trying to remember his name. It was one of the lab's deputy directors who had been to the International Atomic Energy Agency, who had served over there part time, so he knew kind of what he was talking about.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you got a letter saying you had been selected.
MR. KUYKENDALL: I had been selected.
MR. MCDANIEL: Had they interviewed you or anything like that?
MR. KUYKENDALL: They had not interviewed me.
MR. MCDANIEL: They just went on a recommendation.
MR. KUYKENDALL: They wanted me to come to the IAEA for a talk. I had been selected, but they wanted me to come there for an interview.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, where is that? Is that - not Geneva, is it?
MR. KUYKENDALL: It is Geneva.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's what I was thinking. Geneva. Right.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah? Geneva, Switzerland. And so I went over and interviewed them and, lo and behold, all is well. Got my marching orders and Sandy and the children - I had two little ones, still at home, I think it was about the third grade and fifth grade. The family went with me to Brazil. And so we spent a year in Rio De Janeiro.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you know when you went that it would be a year?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yes, we knew it was a one year leave of absence to be there. So we made arrangements with the company. So in 1975, we were there. '75, '76. And that was a real experience to live in Rio for a year.
MR. MCDANIEL: A kid from a dirt road in Arkansas, doing something like that, was a little different, wasn't it?
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was different to be selected to go down there. We lived in a little apartment in a part of the Rio area called Leblon. Easy walking distance to the beach. Copacabana beach was right next door to us. And so we were there for a whole year, exploring and talking and working with the Brazilians, and helping them with the manpower planning. What would you really need to support a nuclear power industry?
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right, exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: We all enjoyed that. It was an eye-opener to us, and particularly to my children, because here we went to a place where 90 percent of the people were poor, and I really mean poor. So the kids observed that. It made a difference in the way they thought about things, but we had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. We traveled some while we were there. Got an opportunity to - well, you probably know where the capital of Brazil is. It was not in Rio.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. It's what? Brasilia or something?
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was Brasilia.
MR. MCDANIEL: Brasilia. Exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And they built it separate.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did they?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah, and so most of the time you had to fly to get over there, but it was possible to drive, but we flew over to get back and forth. The IAEA had a little headquarters group over there that we'd communicate with, and visited, and made some reports. Anyway, that was an enjoyable year.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet it was.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And kind of an interruption, but it was just a leave of absence, and when I returned -
MR. MCDANIEL: It was a yearlong working vacation, wasn't it? [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was a yearlong working vacation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Which is what you needed, probably about that time.
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was a great opportunity for all four of us.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you came back in '76.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Came back in '76 and there was a problem at Paducah by then, having to do with security. And I had not done a lot of work in security, but Bill Sargent said to me, "Charlie, why don't you go to Paducah and help them fix that security problem?" And I said, "Bill, I'm not a security expert." He says, "Yeah, but you know enough about what needs to be done. You can take care of that." Clyde Hopkins was at Paducah.
MR. MCDANIEL: He was at Paducah at the time.
MR. KUYKENDALL: So Clyde said, "Charlie, why don't you come on over here?" So I went over, and we talked. So, we moved to Paducah and stayed three years. Their problem was well solved by the time we came back, and I learned a lot of new kinds of things at Paducah that I'd never worked on before, either. Because over there, it was a mixture of labor relations, fire and guard department, employee relations, wage and salary, some of those things - I'd never worked in those areas before. So, it was a very interesting --
MR. MCDANIEL: Good opportunity for you to learn.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Oh, yeah, and it was a little Southern river town. I had never lived in a place like that, and I enjoyed the heck out of that.
MR. MCDANIEL: You know, I interviewed Clyde Hopkins already, and he talked quite a bit about his time in Paducah.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah. It was an interesting town. You made a lot of friends, and you made them fast. You just - They just welcomed us with open arms into the community. And the Paducah plant, it was not like Oak Ridge. See, the Paducah plant was just one facility among the industrial community. Paducah was an old Southern town. So there was a different feel about it.
MR. MCDANIEL: And I imagine a lot of the local folks worked there, didn't they?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, they did, but there were so many other plants that it was just one of several - of five or six biggies.
MR. MCDANIEL: It was an industrial center.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah, so it was not like -
MR. MCDANIEL: The main employer.
MR. KUYKENDALL: That's right. When you think of Oak Ridge, you think immediately of -
MR. MCDANIEL: The federal government [Laughter].
MR. KUYKENDALL: That's not the attitude or atmosphere. Anyway, we enjoyed that also. When we got ready to come back to Oak Ridge, we had finished our work there and found a little problem at ORNL having to do with security, also. And Clyde said, "Well, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone. Why don't you just come and take over our division, Laboratory Protection Division." Eventually, it had in it the Fire and Guard Department, a separate department called Security, Shift Superintendents - which, you know what they do, they run things when everybody's gone home - and classification, and the Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability group. So, it was a conglomerate of a bunch of Laboratory services.
MR. MCDANIEL: And this was in Oak Ridge?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Oak Ridge National Lab.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you probably wouldn't have had that opportunity had you not gone to Paducah and -
MR. KUYKENDALL: Probably not.
MR. MCDANIEL: Learned what you learned.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Probably would not have happened. So then, I came back to Oak Ridge there, and finished the rest of my career at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. And I loved working at the Lab also. The people were so beautiful to work with. And they were not exactly accustomed to people like me going out of their way to help them. See, if I heard that there was a problem of some sort - see, we had facilities, the Lab did, at Y-12, too. And every once in a while, I'd hear that there was some sort of little problem that my people at Y-12 - when I say my people, I'm talking about the Lab researchers - had, and I would just go over to watch, well, because I worked over there seven years. I'd go over there and kind of straighten it out. And I remember some of them saying, "Nobody's ever done this for us before." [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Kind of left them on their own?
MR. KUYKENDALL: So, I loved doing that, too.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, who was Director of the Lab when you were doing that job? Was it Alvin?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Alvin [Weinberg] was not the director when I went there, it was Herman Postma.
MR. MCDANIEL: I thought Herman came after Alvin. He did, didn't he?
MR. KUYKENDALL: He did, but when I went to the Lab, Herman Postma was Director.
MR. MCDANIEL: Herman Postma.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Alvin had already moved to Washington, and was back at ORAU.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly, exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Alvin and I had a good working relationship, though.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me about that a little bit.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, back when I was at Central Employment, I made a real effort to make sure that we got to know what it was that the Lab really needs, what kind of people. And rather than just depending on paperwork to flow to us, I would go out and sit and talk with those managers, division managers. Or I'd have an annual get together of some of those people and talk with them. In other words, every job I had I tried to include as many people into it as I could and say, "We want to help you, but we need your input." And Alvin really liked that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did he?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah. Yeah, he liked that. Well, and Weinberg was such a gracious and kind person to begin with.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you worked – So, you retired. What year did you retire?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I retired at the end of '94, or January the 1st, 1995. Now, a few things I haven't told you about extracurricular activities if you're working in some of these areas I'm working in. One of them was that in security, for example, security being a multi-faceted operation and every major DOE facility in the United States had a security operation, and therefore problems. So, security managers got our heads together, annually, to talk about these things. And we would do it at different places. So here I was, going to Los Alamos. I'd go to Livermore. I have been to every DOE facility in the United States. I haven't missed any. I visited many back when I was working on machine tool improvements. Secondly, I did it again on the security business. So I got to know these folks pretty well, and I got to know a lot of DOE people pretty well, too. So the day I retired - You're asking me about when I retired is what reminded me of it. The day after I retired, I got a phone call from University of California, Office of the President of the UC system.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: There's a little management group under the Office of the President that managed the administrative and technical contract stuff having to do with Berkley, Livermore, and Los Alamos. And anyway, I got a call, and it said, "Some of the people you've been working with over the years have told us to call you because we've got a problem, and we were wondering if you'd help us with it." So here I was, retired, and I said, "Well, tell me a little more about it." And they said, "Well, we are having trouble getting agreement between DOE and our own management people at the labs on how they're willing to be measured on their performance, and particularly in the areas of safeguards and security. And we were wondering if you'd be willing to take on the job of working that out so that DOE's happy, our labs are happy, and the evaluations get done and everybody's happy." I said, "Well. It sounds like quite a job. " "Well, yeah, we would like you full-time." I said, "I'm not quite willing to work full time. I'm living on a farm and I love what I'm doing. How about half-time?" They said, "We want to talk with you." They tried to talk me into moving out there. I went out there. We talked and we arrived at an arrangement where they put an office in my home at the farm, a dedicated phone line, gave me the new computer, fixed it up where they could be in contact with me any time they wanted to. Me, just keep track of the time, and then, not only that, I come anytime I wanted to, and come to meetings when they needed me. So I ended up spending about half-time for the next eight years, working with the University of California.
MR. MCDANIEL: Took eight years to work that out? [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: Working with the University of California. Anyway, I was so pleased to get a little note from the guy that I work for. I'm going to hand you that note. See, I retired in - I retired at '95 or '94. Here's Bob Van Ness writing me a little __ note. He was the guy I worked for. He was -
MR. MCDANIEL: Well. That was awfully nice.
MR. KUYKENDALL: They loved what I did for them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did they?
MR. KUYKENDALL: They let me know it regularly. They gave me a big raise without me asking for it as a consultant. They just made it so nice.
MR. MCDANIEL: They were appreciative and they showed it.
MR. KUYKENDALL: They were appreciative and they showed it and it just made it impossible to do anything else but help them out.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh [Laughter] exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And we had a lot of fun doing that, because we were able to get the DOE people to come and join with us on some training and working together. We'd have workshops. We also got a consultant in to show some of these odd things like, "You're better off if you pull together." Anyway, it's that sort of thing that makes your career.
MR. MCDANIEL: Feel like it's important and meaningful.
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was a lot of fun. Yeah. So I worked. I worked with them, and it helped me taper off from being fully employed. So finally, I told them, I said, "You know, I'm going to be 75 years old here, soon. I'm not going to work much longer." "If you will find us a replacement." [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my.
MR. KUYKENDALL: So fortunately, I knew some people in the Pentagon. By then, I'd been back and forth and I'd worked all kinds of situations.
MR. MCDANIEL: You'd worked with everybody, hadn't you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I'd worked with everybody by then. So I went to the Pentagon and sat down with some of the people and told them what I'd been doing, asked them if they knew somebody getting ready to retire that had been in the security business, who sounded like they might fit. They gave me four names. I interviewed the four of them and picked one, and he finished up what I was doing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: They hung onto me for a while, you know, even with him. But I enjoyed it, and that pretty well finished the career part of working with the DOE.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let's go back. Let's go back on to your - talk about your life in Oak Ridge. I mean you're -
MR. KUYKENDALL: Early days?
MR. MCDANIEL: Early days. Well, your family life. You talked. You mentioned your farm. So tell me a little bit about your farm, and when did you get a farm and things such as that? And I want you to talk a little about your involvement in Rotary, too.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Okay. Let me mention the Oak Ridge part first. Of course, when I came to Oak Ridge, I had never been in a place quite like that. That was so different. But one thing I noticed about it, it was so friendly. Every direction you turned, it seemed to be unusually friendly and welcoming. It seemed that way to me, anyway. In spite of the fact that Oak Ridge was pretty well grown up in 1953, there were a lot of things that weren't finished. For example, we joined First United Methodist Church in a theatre.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really? In '53?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah. In a theatre. And they moved the very next year. They moved the very next year to their new First United Methodist Church current location, but they still - You know the early history. Chapel on the Hill. People were going to Chapel on the Hill. But there was a theatre up there in Jackson Square that -
MR. MCDANIEL: The Center Theatre. Or was it the Center or did you go the Ridge? You know there were both of them. One was down on one end, and the Center was in Jackson Square, where the Playhouse is now.
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was in Jackson Square, but it wasn't where the Playhouse is. It was a - We were meeting in the old theatre down kind of at the end of the -
MR. MCDANIEL: It was down near Big Ed's.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, that was the Ridge Theatre. That turned out to be the Ridge Theatre, yes.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Big theatre.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And that's where we joined. That's where I joined the church. So I started getting to know a lot of people, not only there but in the community. And when they had needs and wondered if somebody would volunteer to help with something, I was always willing to volunteer and help out, so I got involved in a lot of things as the years have gone by. Almost forgotten them, but I was reminded the other day by Murray Rosenthal. He had a clipping showing him and me on a City Charter Committee in the 1950’s when Oak Ridge was trying to develop its first steps of independence from the government. He said, "Charlie? Here you are. You were on this little group that was helping in the development of the first plan for..."
MR. MCDANIEL: The first charter for the city?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah, the city. What kind of charter we were going to have. I said, "I don't remember that." We have done so many things.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, I understand.
MR. KUYKENDALL: But we enjoyed Oak Ridge very much. There were always plenty of things to do. The community made you feel at home right off, and the schools were superb. Now, our kids hadn't started to school, and by the time we bought the farm they still hadn't started school.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you also got involved in Rotary, you said, in Oak Ridge while you were there.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, actually, Rotary - We only had one club for a long, long time. So for many, many years, you pretty much had to be either a chief executive or high in the organization to be in Rotary.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: So, when I went to work at Downtown as manager of Central Employment, it was very soon after that that my dentist, J.D. Johnson, said to me, "Have you ever thought about joining Rotary?" And at the time, I didn't know that Admiral Van Hamilton, who used to run Central Employment years ago, had also been in Rotary. But then, I found out later that he had. But he'd been gone a long time.
MR. MCDANIEL: But that position was a position that they wanted for Rotary?
MR. KUYKENDALL: That was a position they wanted someone who is manager of Central Employment to be in Rotary. So yes, I joined Rotary in 1968, I believe. So the Oak Ridge Rotary Club has been a big part of my life since 1968. Even at the farm, my dentist, my eye doctors, and all that sort of thing – were all Oak Ridge. And so are a lot of my close friends. But you know, I discovered, after I joined Rotary, that something like 30 percent of the members of the Oak Ridge Rotary Club were Knox County residents.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? But they worked in Oak Ridge?
MR. KUYKENDALL: They had to either work in the area or live in the area. And that's right. And so I worked in the area, and joined the Club, and I'm not planning to ever be a member of any other one. The Oak Ridge Rotary Club, Bill Sergeant always called it.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] There you go. So, when did you buy your farm and where was that?
MR. KUYKENDALL: In 1958, as I say, we just got to looking around, because I wanted a little elbow room, and I wanted the kids just to have the fun of picking berries and growing up milking cows and that sort of thing. So the farm was one-mile south of Hardin Valley, on Schaefer Road. And so on that road, right across the road from Pellissippi Vet Clinic – of course Pellissippi wasn't even there at the time - we found 20 acres. And strangely enough, the people who lived on it, just a man and his wife, they wanted to move to Oak Ridge. So they bought our house and I bought their farm. So we sold 104 West Price Lane property to them, and they sold us their farm.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. So, you moved out there in '58?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yep.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you were there until -
MR. KUYKENDALL: We were there until 2000.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, right.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Moved over here in 2000.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. So your kids grew up on the farm. You had cows. You had -
MR. KUYKENDALL: We had cows, we had chickens, turkeys. We had a big garden, and the kids helped with it every year. We had a fireplace. In addition to the fireplace, we had a little woodstove in the kitchen that helped with things. We had bees.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we had a beehive. When I was a kid growing up on our farm, I accidentally bumped into a cluster of bees one day that had swarmed from somewhere and was on a bush. And I ran and got my dad and so we started keeping bees after that on that farm. And so I couldn't resist. I had an opportunity to get bees on the farm out there, and so I kept bees on the farm for 40 years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So, even though as much as you liked Oak Ridge, you wanted kind of what you had growing up, didn't you? And you wanted it for your children?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I wanted my kids to have that experience, and I guess I felt like I could have the best of both worlds. I could just live outside there, work in Oak Ridge, go into Oak Ridge for meetings.
MR. MCDANIEL: Everything you needed.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Everything I needed, and back and forth. And still consider this kind of the whole Oak Ridge area. I never considered - I was 15 minutes from town, so I told somebody, I said, "You know, I believe I can be at the office as quickly as someone who lives on the west end of town can get to the same spot."
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure. [Laughter] I'm sure of that.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And then they built Pellissippi, but the Parkway made it even faster.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course. Well, is there anything else you want to talk about?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I believe that I may have covered most everything.
MR. MCDANIEL: You know, I tell people. I say, "Here's your opportunity." I said, "This tape's going to be around lot longer than you and me both, so if you want to say anything, now is your time." [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, you know you have asked questions mostly having to do with work, and most of us work eight hours a day, and then we're involved in other things for many other hours. I have been very active in our community, whether I was in Oak Ridge or here, and I was a scoutmaster for 15 years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Were you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Three boys and a girl growing up. So they naturally - they loved hiking and camping. Also, been active in my church, teaching Sunday school and working with kids as well. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I've always felt like that you really need to pay back. I have been so lucky in my life that you need to give back. And in so doing, I've worked with United Way. Of course, when I worked in Oak Ridge, I was chairman of our United Way campaign occasionally. And here, I've been on the United Way committee several times. I worked with the Food Bank for years. In fact, one of the things I'm probably most proud of is helping get the Knoxville Harvest started.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Now, Second Harvest is the regular food bank. Knoxville Harvest is where you pick up food that has been prepared, but not used. One day, I was reading Reader's Digest, many years ago, and I'm not sure what year it was, but I'd say it's been at least 15 years ago. And they had a program there that they were doing in Kentucky. And it caught my eye. They were picking up food that had been prepared, but not used, rather than being thrown away.
MR. MCDANIEL: At restaurants? I mean -
MR. KUYKENDALL: Restaurants, wherever. So, I said, "That is a great idea! Why don't we do that here?" And it just happened I was on the United Way board at the time, and I went to our president, and I said, "Look, we oughta get this started in Knoxville." He said, "We've got money to do it." And so we got started on a volunteer basis. We got somebody to give us a truck. It was an old truck, just one. I was the guy that had to recruit the volunteers to go do the pickup. We went around and picked up food at many places, starting with University of Tennessee, some of the hospitals, and then we started getting food from the places that prepared pizza, Pizza Hut. And you'd wonder why would Pizza Hut have any extra pizza left over? Well, Pizza Hut had a deal where they had a luncheon or something. They cooked a lot of pizzas and you come in and they didn't use all their pizzas. So rather than throw them away, they gave them to us. And you know what? We would pick this up in our refrigerated truck and we would take it to one of the shelters downtown. Oh, they loved it.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet they did.
MR. KUYKENDALL: They loved it, because here's food that's been cooked and just not used. Some of it, they would freeze if they didn't need it right then, but it was all used. And then, the grocery stores started giving us slightly not good enough to sell fruits and vegetables. We're now up to where we no longer do it with volunteers. For about the first four years we did it. I recruited volunteers and we did it with volunteers. It's now being done fully by hired people, plus I think it's either four or five new refrigerated trucks that have been bought. So we're picking up thousands and thousands of pounds.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, from that one little idea, you all are feeding thousands of people?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yep, yep. And you know I hate to brag about it, but I'm proud of it, and I've not made a big deal of it, but one day at Rotary, we had a speaker from Second Harvest. And they looked out there and saw me. "That's Charlie Kuykendall. You're the one that started it." And then they told a little about it in Rotary. But I've not made a big deal of it, but I'm proud of it. Because that's one of the things that’s really, really been effective in this area. We all had to go get training on food handling. We went to UT and they gave us the free training on the weekend for handling food. That included - It almost made me afraid to go to a restaurant after that, because it included, after you washed your hands, putting a little imprint on a gel, and letting it stay overnight and then looking at it in a microscope.
MR. MCDANIEL: Look and see what was on there after you washed your hands.
MR. KUYKENDALL: After you'd washed your hands. And you can imagine before. Aah! Well, anyway, those are some of the things I'm proud of as community activities. And I was in Stephen Ministry. You know what a Stephen Minister is? Well, in our church, for about six years, we had a program where you get trained to listen to and help other people who have problems. You are not ordained or anything like that, but you listen to and help - just listen to, primarily, reflect, and, if you can, help. And since I'd had one divorce in my life, I thought, "Well, I'll specialize in helping people with divorces." And so I did. I would meet with those individuals one hour a week, quite often in my home for lunch, just them and me, a man and me. Or I'd meet them at a restaurant somewhere, and we'd sit and eat and talk. Just give them a chance to talk and reflect and maybe help a little bit. But that program helped a lot of people with difficult to handle problems.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure that was very fulfilling, wasn't it, for you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: That was a fulfilling program, also. Yeah. Anyway, I've kept busy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure [Laughter]. And you're still going strong, aren't you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I haven't slowed down too much. [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: I teach Sunday school now and then.
MR. MCDANIEL: Do you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, good.
MR. KUYKENDALL: I had almost forgotten this. I got a kick out of this guy who wrote a little poem for my retirement.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Read it.
MR. KUYKENDALL: I'm afraid to read it, because most people would think that if I read it, they'd think I was bragging.
MR. MCDANIEL: No, they won't think you're bragging. Go ahead and read it for us. Let's hear.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, Willis Baker, who was at the Lab at the time, I don't know whether you know Willis or not. He wrote this, and I was amazed at how he got stuff in there that makes sense.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: So, it's, “Charlie Kuykendall. Five syllables in all. He's not really short nor what one would call tall, but faced with a test or a question of wrong, his stature grows tall, and his shadow is long. He wears a shy grin, there's a twang in his voice, ask if you like him, his warmth leaves you no choice. Lover of nature and advocate of good, he camps with family, hikes with them in the woods. In newness of spring, he's found tilling the earth. Respects the creature that everything has worth. His counsel is wise, his words selected well. And he loves to laugh. Always a tale to tell. What Charlie believes, he practices each day, not just on Sundays or other special days. When everything's right, when it's sunny or blue, Charlie stands faithful to the cause tried and true. Workers and bosses hold him in high esteem. He steers the worker and inspires those who dream. We've shared our concerns, and had laughs at his desk. I call him my friend, would trust him with my best. He's a prudent man, his debts faithfully paid. Some swear that he's framed the first dollar he made. [Laughter]
Coming close to being true there. Charlie Kuykendall is a generous man indeed, gives first of himself to those who have need. If he has a flaw, it's he'll surely be late, for his retirement, like his wedding date. But as Sandy [Kuykendall] said, he'll just quickly contrive some tall tale to tell when he finally arrives.” [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did you have a habit of being late?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I did, because I was so busy.
MR. MCDANIEL: For sure. Of course. I used to work for a fellow, and his name was Danny. I said, "There's regular time, and then there's Danny Time, and Danny Time is about 90 minutes after regular time." [Laughter] So.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, before I got married, I got a call from my previous father-in-law. And it was just on my wedding day. He knew that I was going to get married that evening.
MR. MCDANIEL: Re-married?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Re-married. And he says, "Well, I'm just calling to see if you want to change your mind." My previous wife was already re-married.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: She was already married, but anyway, he called, and then like he was want to do, he talked quite a bit. And I didn't realize that the time was running out. So it's true, time I got to the church, I was a minute or two late. [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Goodness. And I bet your new wife was sitting there going, "Uh..."
MR. KUYKENDALL: Her mother. Her mother said, "He's changed his mind." [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, Charlie, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I'm glad. Did you know -- You wouldn't have known Harry Walker in Oak Ridge?
MR. MCDANIEL: No.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, Harry Walker, he lived his entire life after he came back to work at Oak Ridge, in Oak Ridge, and he was my new father-in-law, but yeah. I didn't know whether you knew the Walkers, or not.
MR. MCDANIEL: No, I didn't know. I didn't know him, I certainly didn't. So, all right, very good. Well, thank you so much.
MR. KUYKENDALL: All right.
MR. MCDANIEL: It was great!
MR. KUYKENDALL: You may have gotten more than you wanted. I don't know.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, no. It was great. It was great.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[Editor’s Note: At the request of Mr. Kuykendall, this transcript has been edited for clarification and simplification. The video in correspondence with this transcript has not been changed.]

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ORAL HISTORY OF CHARLES (CHARLIE) KUYKENDALL
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
March 5, 2012
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is March the 5th, 2012, and I am at the home of Charlie Kuykendall, or Charles, I suppose it is.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, everybody at work said Charlie.
MR. MCDANIEL: Charlie [Laughter].
MR. KUYKENDALL: And my family always said Charles, but that's because my mom.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course, but everybody knows you knows you as Charlie Kuykendall. And we're at Charlie's home here in Knoxville. And Charlie, thank you for taking time to talk to us.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I'm kind of surprised that y'all want to talk with me, but I'm pleased to be of any help.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right, well usually let's start at the -- I start at the very beginning, and we're going to talk about your life and your work, but let's start at where you were born and where you were raised and something about your family.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I was born the 16th of 17 children, in a little -- on a farm near Wickes, Arkansas. We lived three miles out of town, and as a matter of fact, my dad never owned a car. He [Laughter] -- kind of funny. When one of my brothers got old enough to earn money and offered to buy my Dad a car, my Dad said, "Why would I want a car? It's just three miles to town. I can hitch the team up, put the corn in that we're going to have ground, put the kids in the back, and we can all have fun riding out there, and back." And he said, "If I had a car, it would just ruin everything."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: So he would never own a car and didn't own a car the entire time we were growing up. Just no need for one.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, and you were born in what year?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I was born in 1929, right at the end of the Depression.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. And so you were the 16th of 17 children.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Right, right. One mom and one dad, and my mom, later on, she told me one day, she said - and these young girls today - she said, "They go up to the hospital to have those babies." She said, "I had all of my babies at home, in the morning, and I'd be doing the washing in the afternoon."
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? [Laughter] Sounds like she was pretty tough.
MR. KUYKENDALL: She came from South Carolina with her mom and dad in a covered wagon. She was the oldest child in that family, and indeed she was a real pioneer.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm going to adjust something real quick, just for a second. There we go. She was a real pioneer.
MR. KUYKENDALL: She was a real pioneer.
MR. MCDANIEL: All right. So this was the - this was in the, I guess, ‘30s and ‘40s in where you grew up in Wickes, Arkansas.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Right, that's when I grew up. I always felt like we were rich, even though we really didn't have anything except we had plenty of fruit, plenty of vegetables, plenty of eggs, plenty of chickens, and all those good things that, today, they say you should eat to stay healthy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course, of course. The – so, y'all grew up on a working farm. Your dad was a farmer.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Right. It was just a small working farm. Most of it was just to make our own living, but we grew some things to bring in a little money.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So how big was the house you lived in with 17 kids? And were all 17 at home at one time?
MR. KUYKENDALL: No. You can imagine, over a period of time, some were gone. As a matter of fact, my oldest sister had four children before I was born. So here we are. No, they were not all at home at the same time, but the house was small, but it seemed like plenty of room to us at the time. You remember little Jimmy Dickens sleeping at the foot of the bed song?
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, sure.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, many a time, I slept at the foot of the bed, because company did come round, and it was never a question about, "Oh, do we have room?" Oh, we just made an extra bed in the floor, or if we were - in my case, I was next to the baby in the family. There'd be six or seven of us sleeping in one bed. We would sleep like this, heads and toes, and - yeah. Anyway.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, my goodness. [Laughter] So, y'all survived, y'all survived, and now, where did you go to school?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, there's a little school about three miles from where I grew up, and as a matter of fact, I just happened to have a picture. It was a very small school. I just happened to have a picture of some of us in the first grade.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Just sit back and hold it. I'm going to zoom in on that.
MR. KUYKENDALL: It's a - this is typical of what we all looked like [Laughter].
MR. MCDANIEL: _ _ _, hold on a second, let me -
MR. KUYKENDALL: You notice everybody's got overalls on. All the boys do. And, of course, we knew - all of us knew each other.
MR. MCDANIEL: Which one is you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I am that one right there where my finger is pointing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let me zoom in there. Oh, my goodness. [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: That's me.
MR. MCDANIEL: That is you. All right. All right, there we go, that's good, thank you, that's good. So, it was about three miles?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yep, it was about three miles to school, and the school bus came by to pick us up, so we didn't have to walk to school. We had to walk a mile from our house down to catch the school bus, a good part of that, because the way the roads were. We lived on dirt road. That road is still dirt road back there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really?
MR. KUYKENDALL: In fact, one of my nephews, who still lives in the old place, told me recently, he said, "Uncle Charles, they're thinking about paving these roads." He said, "I may have to move." He said, "There'll be cars, lotta cars coming through here if they do all that." [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: My goodness. So, just a second. So, the little house. You said it had -
MR. KUYKENDALL: Six rooms.
MR. MCDANIEL: Six rooms, and how many kids? Can you remember how many kids were there at home at one time? Maybe nine or ten or something?
MR. KUYKENDALL: There were nine of us at home at one time, and of course we're talking about the days when the three C's - the Civilian Conservation Corps - was up. Two of my brothers went to that to make some money and we're also talking about a time that wasn't too long that World War II came along. Three of my brothers were in World War II, so they - family came and went, so to speak.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. Now, so you went - you grew up there, you went to high school there, I suppose.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: And then what happened when you graduated high school?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I started talking about it in the 10th grade, about going to college, and my dad - I always told my kids I had one advantage they didn't have, and that was that my parents let me know early if I was going to make it I would have to make it on my own. And my dad told me. He said, "You know, if you're interested in going to college, I'll tell you what. I'll give you that heifer calf and you take good care of her. She'll have a calf before you finish high school." Maybe I was in the 9th grade at that time. And anyway, that turned out to be a cow and a calf by the time I got ready to go to college. And I sold it. He also told me, "There's a quarter of an acre of land down there, if you want to raise some beans on it. They're shipping beans out of Wickes up to Kansas City on the Kansas City Southern Railway. So if you want that quarter of an acre, plant you some beans down there and harvest them and get them into town." And so we did that. And so when I went away to college, I had just a little nest egg and I found a job the first week I was in school, working in the school cafeteria. So I worked my way through school. But I think I owed $500.00 when I graduated after four years of college.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Now, where did you go to school? Where'd you go to college?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Henderson State University. It was a small liberal arts college.
MR. MCDANIEL: And where was that?
MR. KUYKENDALL: At Arkadelphia, Arkansas.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Now, how far away was that from your home?
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was about 200 miles. I could hitchhike there and hitchhike back, which is what I did most of the time, rather than waste any money buying a bus ticket and going all the way to Texarkana, and then back up toward Fort Smith. I could cut through by hitchhiking, so that's generally what I did. ‘Course, we lived at school. We lived on the campus in a dormitory, but I found ways to make money in college. I tell you. I took up dry cleaning in my dormitory. The dry cleaner was - he was delighted to find somebody that would collect payment for the dry cleaning and the area rather than him having to fool with it. And he'd give me a percentage. And so there were several ways to make money, and so working in the school cafeteria was one. Good amount of kids would just fool around during lunch time or breakfast time or supper time. Anyways, I was working in the dishwasher room, helping with running that big dishwasher.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, what did you study? What were you interested in?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I was interested in chemistry. Chemistry, physics, and math. And so I graduated with a major in chemistry and minors in physics and math.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, were you interested in that in high school? When you were in high school?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Somewhat, however the little high school we went to, it was not strong in subjects like chemistry and physics. I had developed that interest on my own. I had also developed it thinking that it would be a good preliminary to a better job than I would normally find if I were just to take an ordinary job.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly, exactly. So, you graduate. What year did you graduate college?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I graduated in 1951. Another way of making money in college was ROTC. So, when I graduated, the Korean War was underway, and I got my commission as a second lieutenant and went into the Army as second lieutenant during the Korean conflict.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. And you were there, what, two years?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Two years. The Army has a way of having a great impact on people's lives, and they certainly did on mine. During my time in the Army, even though I went in the infantry, because of my background in chemistry and physics, I was moved, transferred, to the Chemical Corps for a reason, which I didn't know exactly, at the time, what the reason was, but the reason was that the Chemical Corps was needing some people to help with some of the work out in the Nevada Test Site. I knew very little except what I'd read in college about the atomic energy business, but I knew it was a growing business. But anyway. I was sent to the Nevada Test Site in 1952 --
MR. MCDANIEL: While you're in the service?
MR. KUYKENDALL: --while I was in the service, to start work on 12 atomic tests, as the radiological safety officer. By then I'd had my training at Fort McClellan and my job was to make sure that during the test and after the test that we measured what the radiation was and that we let people in to do their work on at safe levels. And of course, I did some briefings during that time, because a lot of people came to see tests. And lo and behold, here were some people from Oak Ridge who came out to see those tests. I had not really heard much about Oak Ridge up until that point. And I remember there was a guy named Frank Hurd that came out, and Paul Huber. And Sam Sapirie, as a matter of fact. So, during one of my briefings, I met those three people, and it was Frank Hurd who said, "Are you going to stay in the Army the rest of your life?" And I said, "No." He said, "If you are interested in coming to Oak Ridge, we would like to talk with you." So, when I finished that tour out there and got back to Fort McClellan, I made arrangements to come up for an interview. And I came up and interviewed with Bill Wilcox, who was Frank Hurd's assistant. And Bill Wilcox - you know how meticulous Bill is. To Bill, everything is done very carefully. Bill and I were sitting there, going through a very careful interview, and in walks Frank Hurd at K-25, and Frank said, "Well, have you hired him yet? Has he said yes? Have you shown him the housing?" And Bill Wilcox said -
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course, of course. [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: So he said, "Maybe we better go look at some of the housing." And they made me an offer as a junior chemist, and my wife and I didn't have to think about it very long, because we accepted. Been here ever since.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So, you were married at the time?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I was married at the time to Joanne. Sandra and I got married in 1974, my present wife. But yes, I was married at the time, we didn't have any children at the time, but we were married and we both liked this area. And so we said yes, so we came, and we've been here ever since.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So, you came to work in '53, as a junior chemist at K-25. Now, did you work for Wilcox?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yep. Went to work directly for Wilcox, which was like another education, because Bill was so precise on everything that working with him was really great. And I enjoyed that. There was a young man named McCauley who was on active duty. He had been called to active duty while working for Wilcox. When he returned, I went to the Chemistry Department. We were in the Development Division. So, I went to the Chemistry Department and worked on uranium chemistry.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, what did you do when you first got there? What was a typical thing that you would do, working there as a junior chemist, at K-25?
MR. KUYKENDALL: As a junior chemist? Well, at that time, in the period of '54 and '55 there was a lot of work going on having to do with improving the efficiency of the cascades. I'm sure you know, and people who understand gaseous diffusion know, that we were using a lot of energy to compress that gas and put it through. And we were, at the time, looking to see if we couldn't do it more efficiently, particularly heating the uranium a little higher and so it would compress and go through better, and cooling it a little faster, and some places - I suppose most of this has been declassified since I worked there. But I worked on a coolant helping to develop and test a coolant that would be used to improve the efficiency of our gaseous fusion process.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, it was a chemical based coolant I guess?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yes, it was a coolant called 223-trichloro-heptofloro-butane. [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: What a name!
MR. KUYKENDALL: And the question -
MR. MCDANIEL: It had to have a short name, now what did they call it?
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was called 423 or something like that. But the question was - the real question was, suppose there's a leak between this coolant and uranium. Can you separate them?
MR. MCDANIEL: Can you separate them, right.
MR. KUYKENDALL: How can you? Can you separate them with efficiency? It was to prove that it could be done. Did that work and did that report. Got it out, and John Barber – Dr. John Barber - was my immediate boss at the time, and he was real happy with the results. And we ended up using that particular coolant.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah. And not only at K-25, but at Portsmouth, too.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you left after that project. You went to the Chemistry Division. And is that where you worked on this project?
MR. KUYKENDALL: The Chemistry Department of the Gaseous Diffusion Development Division is where I worked on this project.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, how long were you at the Chemistry Division?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I was there until let's see - until 1960. Some of that time, I was asked to go do other jobs, because my background was so varied. I worked in the pilot plant, where we were testing the barrier.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, the barrier.
MR. KUYKENDALL: To see if its efficiency was what we thought it'd be. So I worked in that for a while, too. So I had a variety of jobs. And then, I worked in a planning group for about a year, but in 1960, I moved - By 1960, the uranium enrichment through gaseous fusion appeared to have reached its height. And we had Portsmouth, we had Paducah, we had Oak Ridge, and everybody said probably no more gaseous fusion plants will be built.
MR. MCDANIEL: Because they figured, "Hey, you had enough to do whatever you needed to do, and you probably don't need anymore."
MR. KUYKENDALL: I was still busy at K-25, but along came a guy, F.S. Patton, from Y-12, and he ran a group over there called Process Analysis. And one day, he just casually asked me if I would be interested in coming over and working at Process Analysis in Y-12. And I thought about it a little bit, and thought about where we were at K-25, and I'd been there 7 years and I'd had a lot of fun. I had enjoyed every job I ever had over there. And so I said to him, "You know, I might be willing to give it a try." And so in 1960, I moved to Y-12 and the Process Analysis Department and worked in that organization.
MR. MCDANIEL: And what did they do? What did Process Analysis do?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, at Y-12, they were working on trying to make sure that the Y-12 processes were all in good shape. It was almost like a consulting group. They were trying to make sure that all was running well in the Y-12 plant. If there was a technical problem, they would help work on the engineering part of the technical problem, if it was something they could help with. George Jasny ended up running it for years and years. And during that time, I got to know, of course, John Murray who was plant manager when I first went over there. John Murray was an interesting person to work around. Can I share one story about John Murray? [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, absolutely, tell me. That's what we're here for.
MR. KUYKENDALL: I always enjoyed the little bit of looking at history and jotting things down, and this is a true story that I jotted down about John Murray. I'd heard it, and it was so funny, I couldn't believe it. John Murray was a workaholic.
MR. MCDANIEL: And he was the plant manager at Y-12?
MR. KUYKENDALL: He was the plant manager. Roger Hibbs worked for him. And George Jasny worked for Roger and I worked for George Jasny. I really started working for Patton - Finis Patton - but Patton went to an engineering group, and Jasny came in. Well, anyway, Murray was down at 9766 one day. There was a medical group down there. Anyway, he noticed a guy sitting in the shade of that building when he went in. And when he came out, 45 minutes later, that guy was still sitting there. And you know - I don't know whether you ever knew John or not, but John Murray just couldn't pass stuff like that by. So he stopped and he said, "Kinda got it made there, haven't you, Buddy?" And that guy said, "All of us Carbiders have got it made." John looked at him, and he said, "You don't know who I am, do you?" And the guy said, "No, I sure don't." And John Murray said, "I'm John Murray. I'm the plant manager." And that guy said, "Man, you have got it made." [Laughter] And when I heard that story, I thought, "Somebody's just made that up." But I went in and asked John. I said, "Did that happen that way?" He said, "It happened exactly that way." I said, "So what did you do?" He said, "What could I do? I had to hurry away from there. I was just about to burst out laughing."
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] Oh, that's funny.
MR. KUYKENDALL: But you know, the attitude at Y-12 was - we are a can-do. We can do anything. And John had a reputation of going out to design labs and getting work that could just barely be done, just -
MR. MCDANIEL: That nobody else could do.
MR. KUYKENDALL: That nobody else could do. It was -
MR. MCDANIEL: And he'd say, "We can do it, and when do you need it?" [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah, yeah. Just barely be done. In fact, Jack Case told me a story one day. He said it reminded him of the moonshiner - Had given this guy some whiskey, the boss, and the boss poured a little of it into a bottle and gave it to one of his workers and said, "Take that home and try it." And the worker came back the next day and said, "Boss, it was just right." And he said, "What do you mean it was just right?" He said, "If it'd been any worse, I couldn't have stood it. If it'd been any better, you wouldn't have given it to me." But that is the kind of jobs that we got. If it'd been any worse, we couldn't have stood it. So anyway, after working in that group for a while, I ended up working directly for Jack Case. And from there, he thought that it would be good if I worked some in the actual fabrication operations. So, I went to work as a general foreman in the machine shops.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah. On a shift.
MR. MCDANIEL: He wanted you to have that experience.
MR. KUYKENDALL: He wanted me to have that experience. And that was a great experience, because I wasn't the machinist, and nearly everybody from foreman, general foreman down, had come through the ranks. They were all machinists. So I learned an immense amount just walking around talking.
MR. MCDANIEL: And Jack Case was the one who told you to do that.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Jack Case was one who said -
MR. MCDANIEL: Because he came from there, didn't he?
MR. KUYKENDALL: He moved up from being a machinist himself.
MR. MCDANIEL: To the plant manager, I guess.
MR. KUYKENDALL: To being the plant manager.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And yeah, you'll never find a finer person than Jack Case.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really? Really?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Oh, that's right. I think all of us that ever worked for him or around him have maintained that feeling, that you never run into anybody better than Jack Case.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, here you were, and what year was this, when you went to work as a general foreman?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I was - in those years, let's see. It had to be in about sixty - It had to be about '65, '66, that I was working in the machine shops. This was another thing that was interesting. We were just getting started with trying to do some work with tape control machine tools. Can you imagine an old fashioned name like tape control machine?
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Machinist’s didn't like it. The foreman, general foreman, didn't like it, because they'd come up doing it all exactly on their own.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And I kind of got - I kind of edged my way in and helped get them to see the value of using those to help them do a better job. And they, in turn, would make suggestions to me about how we could shorten some of the jobs we were on by doing some simple things. But anyway, I loved that job, and -
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you? Shift work?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Shift work, too. It didn't matter. Whatever we were doing, I liked it all. And during that time, we had the opportunity to get interested in the Moonbox program.
MR. MCDANIEL: I was about to ask you, "Was that about the time of the Moonbox Program wasn't it?"
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah, and by then, I had moved down to what's called the General Machine Shop, and had the planners and estimators all working for me. And so they sent me down to Houston, along with a team, to look at what was needed, what could we do, and how could we do it, to do those moonboxes. So I had a little hand in that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, tell me about that. Tell me about the process a little bit there.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, it was a fairly simple process. We made those moonboxes out of aluminum.
MR. MCDANIEL: They were solid pieces of aluminum, weren't they?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah. And we had to machine them out, but it was all done in what we call the big shop, the General Machine Shop. It was just a process of using our big machine tools to do a job that apparently NASA had trouble finding anybody else who said they were willing to do it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. Took it on.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And we took it on, since we been accustomed to taking on those impossible tasks, and doing it. We had a lot of technical help. There's a lot of people in development and engineering and others who made sure that all went well.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet people wanted to be a part of that project, didn't they?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Oh, yeah, yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Because it was - that was cool.
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was cool.
MR. MCDANIEL: It was cool. It was a cool project.
MR. KUYKENDALL: You're right. It was cool. But anyway, those were good years – 1960’s. One thing I forgot to mention to you is during those years, I guess it was in 1958. Yeah, about 1958. I got my master's degree at UT [University of Tennessee]. UT had a program where they would come to Oak Ridge and teach classes. If you would go to the - all you had to do was go up and take the course. Courses were being taught primarily at - What was the place called up near DOE? It was in one of the buildings near the DOE headquarters.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right, exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Near the Castle.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Anyway, we took those courses regularly there. And I had to make up my mind. Are you going to get a doctorate? Or are you going to specialize in something you can use more quickly? So I ended up getting a degree in management. And so I got my master's degree in management, in 1958.
MR. MCDANIEL: And it was paid for? Was it paid for by the Lab? I mean by Carbide?
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was. It was partly paid for by them and partly by the Army.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Yeah. I suppose so.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Because I still had -
MR. MCDANIEL: GI Bill type things.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah, GI Bill paid. But anyway, during that time that I was working on that, I did some college recruiting, where I would go to help find students that were interested in coming to Oak Ridge through the college recruiting process that we had here. And, it ended up that my master's thesis was on the subject of how do students make their decisions on where they want to go to work?
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: What are the factors? And so I had done that work and completed it, and in doing all of that, I had spent quite a bit of time, off and on, you know like maybe a month out of the year, at Central Employment, uptown. Well, here comes the opportunity. We got a guy up there named Dr. James Gabbard. And he was going to retire, and then the question arose, "Well, who's going to take Dr. Gabbard's place?" And there were four or five of us that were somewhat interested. So around 19 and 70, I was at Y-12, so it had to be '69. In '69, I talked with him about that possibility and I talked with Roger Hibbs about it and Roger said, "Well, if they're going to offer you the top job, if I were you, I'd take it. But if they offer you the secondary job, don’t go" because there was some possibility of shifting things around up there and I wouldn't get the very top job. So, Tom Lane decided, after I told him that I would come and take the job if it was a top job, Tom Lane offered me the top job of being head of Central Employment.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: And that happened around 1970.
MR. MCDANIEL: Seventy. And where was Central Employment?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Central Employment was located at Charlotte Hall, downtown.
MR. MCDANIEL: And that was for Carbide? I mean that was for -
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was all Carbide recruiting for all of Oak Ridge and Paducah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, and Paducah, okay.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And Paducah. Oak Ridge and Paducah. So I went up there and started work as a manager of Central Employment.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you were young. You were just 41.
MR. KUYKENDALL: I was still young.
MR. MCDANIEL: You're still young. [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: In 1973, the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, sent word to Oak Ridge that they were looking for someone who was an expert in manpower planning, who had a technical background. They wanted someone to help the Brazilian government with manpower planning in Brazil, because Brazil, at the time, was thinking about developing nuclear energy to power reactors. So someone from the Lab called me and asked me if I'd put my name in. I said, "Well, I will, but it's probably a waste of time." Because I said, "This is an international search, isn't it?" "Yes, it is. They're looking at England and everywhere." So I put my name in, thinking I might never hear from them. Oh, my gosh. In about a month, I got a registered letter back from the International Atomic Energy Agency saying that I had been selected.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that [Laughter] - Now, did you ever find out who put your name in? Was it somebody who wanted you gone from Oak Ridge? Is that what it was?
MR. KUYKENDALL: No, it was a deputy director at the Lab that I hardly knew. I'm trying to remember his name. It was one of the lab's deputy directors who had been to the International Atomic Energy Agency, who had served over there part time, so he knew kind of what he was talking about.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you got a letter saying you had been selected.
MR. KUYKENDALL: I had been selected.
MR. MCDANIEL: Had they interviewed you or anything like that?
MR. KUYKENDALL: They had not interviewed me.
MR. MCDANIEL: They just went on a recommendation.
MR. KUYKENDALL: They wanted me to come to the IAEA for a talk. I had been selected, but they wanted me to come there for an interview.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, where is that? Is that - not Geneva, is it?
MR. KUYKENDALL: It is Geneva.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's what I was thinking. Geneva. Right.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah? Geneva, Switzerland. And so I went over and interviewed them and, lo and behold, all is well. Got my marching orders and Sandy and the children - I had two little ones, still at home, I think it was about the third grade and fifth grade. The family went with me to Brazil. And so we spent a year in Rio De Janeiro.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you know when you went that it would be a year?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yes, we knew it was a one year leave of absence to be there. So we made arrangements with the company. So in 1975, we were there. '75, '76. And that was a real experience to live in Rio for a year.
MR. MCDANIEL: A kid from a dirt road in Arkansas, doing something like that, was a little different, wasn't it?
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was different to be selected to go down there. We lived in a little apartment in a part of the Rio area called Leblon. Easy walking distance to the beach. Copacabana beach was right next door to us. And so we were there for a whole year, exploring and talking and working with the Brazilians, and helping them with the manpower planning. What would you really need to support a nuclear power industry?
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right, exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: We all enjoyed that. It was an eye-opener to us, and particularly to my children, because here we went to a place where 90 percent of the people were poor, and I really mean poor. So the kids observed that. It made a difference in the way they thought about things, but we had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. We traveled some while we were there. Got an opportunity to - well, you probably know where the capital of Brazil is. It was not in Rio.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. It's what? Brasilia or something?
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was Brasilia.
MR. MCDANIEL: Brasilia. Exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And they built it separate.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did they?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah, and so most of the time you had to fly to get over there, but it was possible to drive, but we flew over to get back and forth. The IAEA had a little headquarters group over there that we'd communicate with, and visited, and made some reports. Anyway, that was an enjoyable year.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet it was.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And kind of an interruption, but it was just a leave of absence, and when I returned -
MR. MCDANIEL: It was a yearlong working vacation, wasn't it? [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was a yearlong working vacation.
MR. MCDANIEL: Which is what you needed, probably about that time.
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was a great opportunity for all four of us.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you came back in '76.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Came back in '76 and there was a problem at Paducah by then, having to do with security. And I had not done a lot of work in security, but Bill Sargent said to me, "Charlie, why don't you go to Paducah and help them fix that security problem?" And I said, "Bill, I'm not a security expert." He says, "Yeah, but you know enough about what needs to be done. You can take care of that." Clyde Hopkins was at Paducah.
MR. MCDANIEL: He was at Paducah at the time.
MR. KUYKENDALL: So Clyde said, "Charlie, why don't you come on over here?" So I went over, and we talked. So, we moved to Paducah and stayed three years. Their problem was well solved by the time we came back, and I learned a lot of new kinds of things at Paducah that I'd never worked on before, either. Because over there, it was a mixture of labor relations, fire and guard department, employee relations, wage and salary, some of those things - I'd never worked in those areas before. So, it was a very interesting --
MR. MCDANIEL: Good opportunity for you to learn.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Oh, yeah, and it was a little Southern river town. I had never lived in a place like that, and I enjoyed the heck out of that.
MR. MCDANIEL: You know, I interviewed Clyde Hopkins already, and he talked quite a bit about his time in Paducah.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah. It was an interesting town. You made a lot of friends, and you made them fast. You just - They just welcomed us with open arms into the community. And the Paducah plant, it was not like Oak Ridge. See, the Paducah plant was just one facility among the industrial community. Paducah was an old Southern town. So there was a different feel about it.
MR. MCDANIEL: And I imagine a lot of the local folks worked there, didn't they?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, they did, but there were so many other plants that it was just one of several - of five or six biggies.
MR. MCDANIEL: It was an industrial center.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah, so it was not like -
MR. MCDANIEL: The main employer.
MR. KUYKENDALL: That's right. When you think of Oak Ridge, you think immediately of -
MR. MCDANIEL: The federal government [Laughter].
MR. KUYKENDALL: That's not the attitude or atmosphere. Anyway, we enjoyed that also. When we got ready to come back to Oak Ridge, we had finished our work there and found a little problem at ORNL having to do with security, also. And Clyde said, "Well, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone. Why don't you just come and take over our division, Laboratory Protection Division." Eventually, it had in it the Fire and Guard Department, a separate department called Security, Shift Superintendents - which, you know what they do, they run things when everybody's gone home - and classification, and the Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability group. So, it was a conglomerate of a bunch of Laboratory services.
MR. MCDANIEL: And this was in Oak Ridge?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Oak Ridge National Lab.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you probably wouldn't have had that opportunity had you not gone to Paducah and -
MR. KUYKENDALL: Probably not.
MR. MCDANIEL: Learned what you learned.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Probably would not have happened. So then, I came back to Oak Ridge there, and finished the rest of my career at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. And I loved working at the Lab also. The people were so beautiful to work with. And they were not exactly accustomed to people like me going out of their way to help them. See, if I heard that there was a problem of some sort - see, we had facilities, the Lab did, at Y-12, too. And every once in a while, I'd hear that there was some sort of little problem that my people at Y-12 - when I say my people, I'm talking about the Lab researchers - had, and I would just go over to watch, well, because I worked over there seven years. I'd go over there and kind of straighten it out. And I remember some of them saying, "Nobody's ever done this for us before." [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Kind of left them on their own?
MR. KUYKENDALL: So, I loved doing that, too.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, who was Director of the Lab when you were doing that job? Was it Alvin?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Alvin [Weinberg] was not the director when I went there, it was Herman Postma.
MR. MCDANIEL: I thought Herman came after Alvin. He did, didn't he?
MR. KUYKENDALL: He did, but when I went to the Lab, Herman Postma was Director.
MR. MCDANIEL: Herman Postma.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Alvin had already moved to Washington, and was back at ORAU.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, exactly, exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Alvin and I had a good working relationship, though.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me about that a little bit.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, back when I was at Central Employment, I made a real effort to make sure that we got to know what it was that the Lab really needs, what kind of people. And rather than just depending on paperwork to flow to us, I would go out and sit and talk with those managers, division managers. Or I'd have an annual get together of some of those people and talk with them. In other words, every job I had I tried to include as many people into it as I could and say, "We want to help you, but we need your input." And Alvin really liked that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did he?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah. Yeah, he liked that. Well, and Weinberg was such a gracious and kind person to begin with.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, you worked – So, you retired. What year did you retire?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I retired at the end of '94, or January the 1st, 1995. Now, a few things I haven't told you about extracurricular activities if you're working in some of these areas I'm working in. One of them was that in security, for example, security being a multi-faceted operation and every major DOE facility in the United States had a security operation, and therefore problems. So, security managers got our heads together, annually, to talk about these things. And we would do it at different places. So here I was, going to Los Alamos. I'd go to Livermore. I have been to every DOE facility in the United States. I haven't missed any. I visited many back when I was working on machine tool improvements. Secondly, I did it again on the security business. So I got to know these folks pretty well, and I got to know a lot of DOE people pretty well, too. So the day I retired - You're asking me about when I retired is what reminded me of it. The day after I retired, I got a phone call from University of California, Office of the President of the UC system.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: There's a little management group under the Office of the President that managed the administrative and technical contract stuff having to do with Berkley, Livermore, and Los Alamos. And anyway, I got a call, and it said, "Some of the people you've been working with over the years have told us to call you because we've got a problem, and we were wondering if you'd help us with it." So here I was, retired, and I said, "Well, tell me a little more about it." And they said, "Well, we are having trouble getting agreement between DOE and our own management people at the labs on how they're willing to be measured on their performance, and particularly in the areas of safeguards and security. And we were wondering if you'd be willing to take on the job of working that out so that DOE's happy, our labs are happy, and the evaluations get done and everybody's happy." I said, "Well. It sounds like quite a job. " "Well, yeah, we would like you full-time." I said, "I'm not quite willing to work full time. I'm living on a farm and I love what I'm doing. How about half-time?" They said, "We want to talk with you." They tried to talk me into moving out there. I went out there. We talked and we arrived at an arrangement where they put an office in my home at the farm, a dedicated phone line, gave me the new computer, fixed it up where they could be in contact with me any time they wanted to. Me, just keep track of the time, and then, not only that, I come anytime I wanted to, and come to meetings when they needed me. So I ended up spending about half-time for the next eight years, working with the University of California.
MR. MCDANIEL: Took eight years to work that out? [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: Working with the University of California. Anyway, I was so pleased to get a little note from the guy that I work for. I'm going to hand you that note. See, I retired in - I retired at '95 or '94. Here's Bob Van Ness writing me a little __ note. He was the guy I worked for. He was -
MR. MCDANIEL: Well. That was awfully nice.
MR. KUYKENDALL: They loved what I did for them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did they?
MR. KUYKENDALL: They let me know it regularly. They gave me a big raise without me asking for it as a consultant. They just made it so nice.
MR. MCDANIEL: They were appreciative and they showed it.
MR. KUYKENDALL: They were appreciative and they showed it and it just made it impossible to do anything else but help them out.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh [Laughter] exactly.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And we had a lot of fun doing that, because we were able to get the DOE people to come and join with us on some training and working together. We'd have workshops. We also got a consultant in to show some of these odd things like, "You're better off if you pull together." Anyway, it's that sort of thing that makes your career.
MR. MCDANIEL: Feel like it's important and meaningful.
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was a lot of fun. Yeah. So I worked. I worked with them, and it helped me taper off from being fully employed. So finally, I told them, I said, "You know, I'm going to be 75 years old here, soon. I'm not going to work much longer." "If you will find us a replacement." [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my.
MR. KUYKENDALL: So fortunately, I knew some people in the Pentagon. By then, I'd been back and forth and I'd worked all kinds of situations.
MR. MCDANIEL: You'd worked with everybody, hadn't you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I'd worked with everybody by then. So I went to the Pentagon and sat down with some of the people and told them what I'd been doing, asked them if they knew somebody getting ready to retire that had been in the security business, who sounded like they might fit. They gave me four names. I interviewed the four of them and picked one, and he finished up what I was doing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: They hung onto me for a while, you know, even with him. But I enjoyed it, and that pretty well finished the career part of working with the DOE.
MR. MCDANIEL: Let's go back. Let's go back on to your - talk about your life in Oak Ridge. I mean you're -
MR. KUYKENDALL: Early days?
MR. MCDANIEL: Early days. Well, your family life. You talked. You mentioned your farm. So tell me a little bit about your farm, and when did you get a farm and things such as that? And I want you to talk a little about your involvement in Rotary, too.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Okay. Let me mention the Oak Ridge part first. Of course, when I came to Oak Ridge, I had never been in a place quite like that. That was so different. But one thing I noticed about it, it was so friendly. Every direction you turned, it seemed to be unusually friendly and welcoming. It seemed that way to me, anyway. In spite of the fact that Oak Ridge was pretty well grown up in 1953, there were a lot of things that weren't finished. For example, we joined First United Methodist Church in a theatre.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, really? In '53?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah. In a theatre. And they moved the very next year. They moved the very next year to their new First United Methodist Church current location, but they still - You know the early history. Chapel on the Hill. People were going to Chapel on the Hill. But there was a theatre up there in Jackson Square that -
MR. MCDANIEL: The Center Theatre. Or was it the Center or did you go the Ridge? You know there were both of them. One was down on one end, and the Center was in Jackson Square, where the Playhouse is now.
MR. KUYKENDALL: It was in Jackson Square, but it wasn't where the Playhouse is. It was a - We were meeting in the old theatre down kind of at the end of the -
MR. MCDANIEL: It was down near Big Ed's.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, that was the Ridge Theatre. That turned out to be the Ridge Theatre, yes.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Big theatre.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And that's where we joined. That's where I joined the church. So I started getting to know a lot of people, not only there but in the community. And when they had needs and wondered if somebody would volunteer to help with something, I was always willing to volunteer and help out, so I got involved in a lot of things as the years have gone by. Almost forgotten them, but I was reminded the other day by Murray Rosenthal. He had a clipping showing him and me on a City Charter Committee in the 1950’s when Oak Ridge was trying to develop its first steps of independence from the government. He said, "Charlie? Here you are. You were on this little group that was helping in the development of the first plan for..."
MR. MCDANIEL: The first charter for the city?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah, the city. What kind of charter we were going to have. I said, "I don't remember that." We have done so many things.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, I understand.
MR. KUYKENDALL: But we enjoyed Oak Ridge very much. There were always plenty of things to do. The community made you feel at home right off, and the schools were superb. Now, our kids hadn't started to school, and by the time we bought the farm they still hadn't started school.
MR. MCDANIEL: But you also got involved in Rotary, you said, in Oak Ridge while you were there.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, actually, Rotary - We only had one club for a long, long time. So for many, many years, you pretty much had to be either a chief executive or high in the organization to be in Rotary.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: So, when I went to work at Downtown as manager of Central Employment, it was very soon after that that my dentist, J.D. Johnson, said to me, "Have you ever thought about joining Rotary?" And at the time, I didn't know that Admiral Van Hamilton, who used to run Central Employment years ago, had also been in Rotary. But then, I found out later that he had. But he'd been gone a long time.
MR. MCDANIEL: But that position was a position that they wanted for Rotary?
MR. KUYKENDALL: That was a position they wanted someone who is manager of Central Employment to be in Rotary. So yes, I joined Rotary in 1968, I believe. So the Oak Ridge Rotary Club has been a big part of my life since 1968. Even at the farm, my dentist, my eye doctors, and all that sort of thing – were all Oak Ridge. And so are a lot of my close friends. But you know, I discovered, after I joined Rotary, that something like 30 percent of the members of the Oak Ridge Rotary Club were Knox County residents.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? But they worked in Oak Ridge?
MR. KUYKENDALL: They had to either work in the area or live in the area. And that's right. And so I worked in the area, and joined the Club, and I'm not planning to ever be a member of any other one. The Oak Ridge Rotary Club, Bill Sergeant always called it.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] There you go. So, when did you buy your farm and where was that?
MR. KUYKENDALL: In 1958, as I say, we just got to looking around, because I wanted a little elbow room, and I wanted the kids just to have the fun of picking berries and growing up milking cows and that sort of thing. So the farm was one-mile south of Hardin Valley, on Schaefer Road. And so on that road, right across the road from Pellissippi Vet Clinic – of course Pellissippi wasn't even there at the time - we found 20 acres. And strangely enough, the people who lived on it, just a man and his wife, they wanted to move to Oak Ridge. So they bought our house and I bought their farm. So we sold 104 West Price Lane property to them, and they sold us their farm.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, okay. So, you moved out there in '58?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yep.
MR. MCDANIEL: And you were there until -
MR. KUYKENDALL: We were there until 2000.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, right.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Moved over here in 2000.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. So your kids grew up on the farm. You had cows. You had -
MR. KUYKENDALL: We had cows, we had chickens, turkeys. We had a big garden, and the kids helped with it every year. We had a fireplace. In addition to the fireplace, we had a little woodstove in the kitchen that helped with things. We had bees.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we had a beehive. When I was a kid growing up on our farm, I accidentally bumped into a cluster of bees one day that had swarmed from somewhere and was on a bush. And I ran and got my dad and so we started keeping bees after that on that farm. And so I couldn't resist. I had an opportunity to get bees on the farm out there, and so I kept bees on the farm for 40 years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So, even though as much as you liked Oak Ridge, you wanted kind of what you had growing up, didn't you? And you wanted it for your children?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I wanted my kids to have that experience, and I guess I felt like I could have the best of both worlds. I could just live outside there, work in Oak Ridge, go into Oak Ridge for meetings.
MR. MCDANIEL: Everything you needed.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Everything I needed, and back and forth. And still consider this kind of the whole Oak Ridge area. I never considered - I was 15 minutes from town, so I told somebody, I said, "You know, I believe I can be at the office as quickly as someone who lives on the west end of town can get to the same spot."
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure. [Laughter] I'm sure of that.
MR. KUYKENDALL: And then they built Pellissippi, but the Parkway made it even faster.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course. Well, is there anything else you want to talk about?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I believe that I may have covered most everything.
MR. MCDANIEL: You know, I tell people. I say, "Here's your opportunity." I said, "This tape's going to be around lot longer than you and me both, so if you want to say anything, now is your time." [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, you know you have asked questions mostly having to do with work, and most of us work eight hours a day, and then we're involved in other things for many other hours. I have been very active in our community, whether I was in Oak Ridge or here, and I was a scoutmaster for 15 years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Were you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Three boys and a girl growing up. So they naturally - they loved hiking and camping. Also, been active in my church, teaching Sunday school and working with kids as well. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I've always felt like that you really need to pay back. I have been so lucky in my life that you need to give back. And in so doing, I've worked with United Way. Of course, when I worked in Oak Ridge, I was chairman of our United Way campaign occasionally. And here, I've been on the United Way committee several times. I worked with the Food Bank for years. In fact, one of the things I'm probably most proud of is helping get the Knoxville Harvest started.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Now, Second Harvest is the regular food bank. Knoxville Harvest is where you pick up food that has been prepared, but not used. One day, I was reading Reader's Digest, many years ago, and I'm not sure what year it was, but I'd say it's been at least 15 years ago. And they had a program there that they were doing in Kentucky. And it caught my eye. They were picking up food that had been prepared, but not used, rather than being thrown away.
MR. MCDANIEL: At restaurants? I mean -
MR. KUYKENDALL: Restaurants, wherever. So, I said, "That is a great idea! Why don't we do that here?" And it just happened I was on the United Way board at the time, and I went to our president, and I said, "Look, we oughta get this started in Knoxville." He said, "We've got money to do it." And so we got started on a volunteer basis. We got somebody to give us a truck. It was an old truck, just one. I was the guy that had to recruit the volunteers to go do the pickup. We went around and picked up food at many places, starting with University of Tennessee, some of the hospitals, and then we started getting food from the places that prepared pizza, Pizza Hut. And you'd wonder why would Pizza Hut have any extra pizza left over? Well, Pizza Hut had a deal where they had a luncheon or something. They cooked a lot of pizzas and you come in and they didn't use all their pizzas. So rather than throw them away, they gave them to us. And you know what? We would pick this up in our refrigerated truck and we would take it to one of the shelters downtown. Oh, they loved it.
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet they did.
MR. KUYKENDALL: They loved it, because here's food that's been cooked and just not used. Some of it, they would freeze if they didn't need it right then, but it was all used. And then, the grocery stores started giving us slightly not good enough to sell fruits and vegetables. We're now up to where we no longer do it with volunteers. For about the first four years we did it. I recruited volunteers and we did it with volunteers. It's now being done fully by hired people, plus I think it's either four or five new refrigerated trucks that have been bought. So we're picking up thousands and thousands of pounds.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, from that one little idea, you all are feeding thousands of people?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yep, yep. And you know I hate to brag about it, but I'm proud of it, and I've not made a big deal of it, but one day at Rotary, we had a speaker from Second Harvest. And they looked out there and saw me. "That's Charlie Kuykendall. You're the one that started it." And then they told a little about it in Rotary. But I've not made a big deal of it, but I'm proud of it. Because that's one of the things that’s really, really been effective in this area. We all had to go get training on food handling. We went to UT and they gave us the free training on the weekend for handling food. That included - It almost made me afraid to go to a restaurant after that, because it included, after you washed your hands, putting a little imprint on a gel, and letting it stay overnight and then looking at it in a microscope.
MR. MCDANIEL: Look and see what was on there after you washed your hands.
MR. KUYKENDALL: After you'd washed your hands. And you can imagine before. Aah! Well, anyway, those are some of the things I'm proud of as community activities. And I was in Stephen Ministry. You know what a Stephen Minister is? Well, in our church, for about six years, we had a program where you get trained to listen to and help other people who have problems. You are not ordained or anything like that, but you listen to and help - just listen to, primarily, reflect, and, if you can, help. And since I'd had one divorce in my life, I thought, "Well, I'll specialize in helping people with divorces." And so I did. I would meet with those individuals one hour a week, quite often in my home for lunch, just them and me, a man and me. Or I'd meet them at a restaurant somewhere, and we'd sit and eat and talk. Just give them a chance to talk and reflect and maybe help a little bit. But that program helped a lot of people with difficult to handle problems.
MR. MCDANIEL: I'm sure that was very fulfilling, wasn't it, for you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: That was a fulfilling program, also. Yeah. Anyway, I've kept busy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure [Laughter]. And you're still going strong, aren't you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I haven't slowed down too much. [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: I teach Sunday school now and then.
MR. MCDANIEL: Do you?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Yeah.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, good.
MR. KUYKENDALL: I had almost forgotten this. I got a kick out of this guy who wrote a little poem for my retirement.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. Read it.
MR. KUYKENDALL: I'm afraid to read it, because most people would think that if I read it, they'd think I was bragging.
MR. MCDANIEL: No, they won't think you're bragging. Go ahead and read it for us. Let's hear.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, Willis Baker, who was at the Lab at the time, I don't know whether you know Willis or not. He wrote this, and I was amazed at how he got stuff in there that makes sense.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly. [Laughter]
MR. KUYKENDALL: So, it's, “Charlie Kuykendall. Five syllables in all. He's not really short nor what one would call tall, but faced with a test or a question of wrong, his stature grows tall, and his shadow is long. He wears a shy grin, there's a twang in his voice, ask if you like him, his warmth leaves you no choice. Lover of nature and advocate of good, he camps with family, hikes with them in the woods. In newness of spring, he's found tilling the earth. Respects the creature that everything has worth. His counsel is wise, his words selected well. And he loves to laugh. Always a tale to tell. What Charlie believes, he practices each day, not just on Sundays or other special days. When everything's right, when it's sunny or blue, Charlie stands faithful to the cause tried and true. Workers and bosses hold him in high esteem. He steers the worker and inspires those who dream. We've shared our concerns, and had laughs at his desk. I call him my friend, would trust him with my best. He's a prudent man, his debts faithfully paid. Some swear that he's framed the first dollar he made. [Laughter]
Coming close to being true there. Charlie Kuykendall is a generous man indeed, gives first of himself to those who have need. If he has a flaw, it's he'll surely be late, for his retirement, like his wedding date. But as Sandy [Kuykendall] said, he'll just quickly contrive some tall tale to tell when he finally arrives.” [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did you have a habit of being late?
MR. KUYKENDALL: I did, because I was so busy.
MR. MCDANIEL: For sure. Of course. I used to work for a fellow, and his name was Danny. I said, "There's regular time, and then there's Danny Time, and Danny Time is about 90 minutes after regular time." [Laughter] So.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, before I got married, I got a call from my previous father-in-law. And it was just on my wedding day. He knew that I was going to get married that evening.
MR. MCDANIEL: Re-married?
MR. KUYKENDALL: Re-married. And he says, "Well, I'm just calling to see if you want to change your mind." My previous wife was already re-married.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
MR. KUYKENDALL: She was already married, but anyway, he called, and then like he was want to do, he talked quite a bit. And I didn't realize that the time was running out. So it's true, time I got to the church, I was a minute or two late. [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Goodness. And I bet your new wife was sitting there going, "Uh..."
MR. KUYKENDALL: Her mother. Her mother said, "He's changed his mind." [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, Charlie, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, I'm glad. Did you know -- You wouldn't have known Harry Walker in Oak Ridge?
MR. MCDANIEL: No.
MR. KUYKENDALL: Well, Harry Walker, he lived his entire life after he came back to work at Oak Ridge, in Oak Ridge, and he was my new father-in-law, but yeah. I didn't know whether you knew the Walkers, or not.
MR. MCDANIEL: No, I didn't know. I didn't know him, I certainly didn't. So, all right, very good. Well, thank you so much.
MR. KUYKENDALL: All right.
MR. MCDANIEL: It was great!
MR. KUYKENDALL: You may have gotten more than you wanted. I don't know.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, no. It was great. It was great.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[Editor’s Note: At the request of Mr. Kuykendall, this transcript has been edited for clarification and simplification. The video in correspondence with this transcript has not been changed.]